Quake Live
Quake Live is an installment of the Quake series of first-person shooters, designed by id Software. It is a modified version of Quake 3 Arena: Gold. It is launched through Steam or a browser plug-in, which runs on computers running Windows, OS X or Linux. Quake Live was different from Quake 3 Arena in that it was free. Supported browsers were Internet Explorer 7+, Mozilla Firefox 2+, and Safari 3+. It was also proven to work under Google Chrome. Quake Live was first announced at QuakeCon 2007 as Quake Zero. The name was changed to Quake Live in 2008 due to a domain squatting issue. Quake Live entered invitation-based closed beta in 2008, entered open beta on February 24, 2009, and was fully released on August 6th, 2010. Two pay to play choices were made available: Pro and Premium. Pro and Premium players get maps and game modes that are not available to standard players. As of July 2014, only Pro subscription is available, in monthly, quarterly, or annually basis. This was later scrapped into a one time fee of 9.99$ on steam as of 2015, which was frustrating for many fans because their statistics and friend lists were reset. Installation Quake Live required a plug-in to play, which may lead to problems in slower computers or faulty browsers. As of December 2013, a stand-alone launcher is released, dropping plug-in support. In September 18, 2014, Quake Live was released on Steam as a free to play game, to have a retail price later at 2015. In-browser gameplay thumb|300px|left|Clan arena Gameplay Gameplay Quake Live runs on a modified version of the id Tech 3 engine. Changes include the addition of new maps, a more straightforward HUD, achievements, and an intuitive client/server interface. Updates are automatically installed each time Quake Live is launched. There are currently no plans to include user modifications, although several successful Quake 3 Arena modders were hired to help. The gameplay of Quake Live consists of players attempting to frag more of their opponents than any other player or team in a given match, similar to its predecessor Quake 3. This is achieved by navigating a 3D environment while collecting health, armor, weapons, ammo and various power-ups in an effort to survive and to defeat opponents. Quake Live ''retains almost everything from ''Quake 3 Arena: Gold ''and retains the same bots in addition to two new ones. DEV Game modes ''Quake Live features many dev game modes: *Various limited edition modes are introduced at regular intervals, known as DevPicks. These feature elements such as permanent invisibility, tactiQuake or slow-mo. *Most of these gamemodes have Instagib (IG) 'variations, where all weapons except for the Railgun are removed. The damage for the Railgun is increased to the point where a player will be killed upon the first hit. According to most sources, Devpicks usually do not include this feature. Game Modes Free for All Free For All (FFA) is normal Death Match Gametype in which you fight against 2 - 12 other opponents. First who scores 50 Frags wins the match. The match lasts 20 minutes if there is a draw there will be added 120 seconds overtime (up to 10 times). FFA mode offers 2 different modification on its own. ''Instagib FFA Instagib Deathmatch where players only start with deadlier Railgun and Gauntlet. All pickups are removed from the map and one hit equals one kill. ''Quad Hog FFA'' One special Quad spawns at the map with the duration of a minute unlike the usual 30 seconds. Each time a player drop it by getting fragged, its timer will be reset back to 60 seconds instead of bearing the current timer from the former carrier. Duel Duel is a 1vs1 based match where you fight on a map of your choice/ your enemy's choice. The match lasts 10 minutes if theres a draw there will be added 120 seconds overtime (up to 10 times). The player who does the most kills wins the map. In tournament play both contestants gets to choose the maps played, to proclaimed as a winner one of the players must win the most of 3-4 matches. Duel has a rather sophisticated gameplay that revolves around restocking also ambushes and falling back. Map knowledge helps to read opponents and figure out when to pressure, keep distance or retreat altogether while timing the needed items to push him/her outta control slowly. Race All pickups removed from the map, players share the same spawn point. Players start with unlimited Plasma Gun, Rocket Launcher and a standard Gauntlet. Checkpoints laid out along a pathway in the map, players can't be harmed by anything but can be slowed down. All players spawn at start point then follow checkpoints to light up the next until they reach the finish. Along the match, it's possible to slow the enemy down by your starter Plasma fire or Gauntlet jabs, as well as advancing in the air by Rocket splashes as you shove them behind. If players were to thrown away off-track, they can respawn at last check point by a self-kill command. Team Death Match (TDM) Team Death Match is a Team based Gametype in which you fight in teams of 2 - 8 players against opponents. The team that does the most kills in 20 minutes wins the match. The match lasts 20 minutes if there is a draw there will be added 120 seconds overtime (up to 10 times). TDM maps have different pickup layouts and both teams clash over the control of important areas to score more frags. It's quite possible to see team fights often at where described as important pickup areas. Item and power-up callouts are important to announce to team via team chat. Different pickup layouts create different choke points to fight over and attacks must be organized in time. Standard deathmatch respawn rules apply, players spawn closer to their teammates if possible. All players given a choice of picking an extra weapon with very limited ammo out of 6 available at the respawn. Clan Arena (CA) Clan Arena is a round based Team Death Match (TDM) in which death is punished harshly. Players fight against other opponents by teams of 2 - 6 players. All pickups and weapons are removed from the map, as players already spawn fully stocked with 200 Health, 100 Armor and given all available arsenal in the map at the start. Upon death; player will be removed from the game as a forced spectator 'till the end of the round where a new one starts. There's a small warmup period at the start of round for teams to bear a strategy as tactical approach is encouraged. First team that wins 10 rounds wins the match. ''Vampiric Clan Arena'' Same set up with Clan Arena. Instead of spawning with armor, all Vampiric Clan Arena players start with 300 health that doesn't decay and can drain 75% of what they dealt as a damage to their health. Any sort of outnumber situation will be punished. Capture the Flag Classic Capture the Flag, both teams have forts and fight in a symettrical layout map to take control of areas and capture the enemy flag back to their own base while retaining their own. Downing an enemy flag runner then touching the flag returns it back to base instantly. Whichever team did the most captures in 15 minutes will win the match as default setup. Maps have important pickups at each base as well as at the middle ground; those must be shared via team chat in a quick manner by means of teamwork. Communication, role in team and domination of the certain areas or sights are important. ''Arena CTF'' Similar to Team Arena CTF with Rune power-ups, but this time a scrapped content added back into it. Any player will now start with an additional Grappling Hook. Like in Team Arena, constant class power-ups called "Rune" will spawn in each team's base. This time they spawn after a certain time limit is hit to prevent teams awaiting their Runes to spawn for prolonged times. Namely Damage, Guard, Armor-Regen and Scout will spawn in each base. While this makes the pickup shares somewhat easier to distribute depending on roles, it doesn't make the challenges any easier. It's up to team to figure out which player plays which Rune the best they can. Arena CTF maps revolve around domination of usable items or power-ups beforehand more than the flag itself to organize an effective attack as game is much more fast paced compared to classic counter-part. ''Instagib CTF'' Capture the Flag with Instagib player rules. Pickups removed, flags are intact, everyone starts with one-hit kill Railgun and Gauntlet. One-Flag CTF A Neutral Flag spawns in the middle of 2 team bases, it should be captured for a score at the enemy base flag post. Pickups are available and teams must gather their own share before organizing and attack like in classic CTF. Harvester A combination of TDM and One-Flag. Players split in two teams to frag each other just like in but with a small twist. Harvester matches done in CTF-based symettrical maps. With each frag, a team colored skull will appear around the Skull Receptacle in the middle of the map. Players must collect opponent team skulls from the Skull Receptacle to score it into the enemy base flag post after collecting them. There's no limit for one's skull carry, yet it's smarter to limit it for attacks to be successful in the longer run. There will be active roaming fraggers as much as skull collectors (skulkers?). Remember that if any of the skull carriers get fragged he/she will drop its collected heads to be become converted for enemy team to pickup and rebound an attack. Freezetag Like Clan Arena but instead of getting entirely removed from the game upon death, players freezes in a stature when got fragged by another. Teammates can crush that stature to thaw frozen player(s) back into the game by standing nearby long enough, causing you to respawn and help in combat. Players can pick an extra starter weapon out of 6 available and each player spawns with 100 health and 100 armor. ''Freezetag Instagib'' As name suggests it's a combination of Freezetag and Instagib modes. Pickups and weapons are throughly removed from the map, every player starts with a deadlier version of Railgun and Gauntlet that freezes the opponent in one hit or jab. Like in Freezetag, teammates can thaw a frozen player by standing nearby. Domination Maps have neutral command points layout, two team fight over the control of the area. Teams must hold a series of command points to score. Pickups removed throughly from the map. Each player only picks 1 starter weapon out of 6 available beside their standard Gauntlet and spawn stocked with 100 health and 100 armor. Attack&Defense Each of the teams take the offense or defense roles. Attackers try to infiltrate the enemy base and capture the flag while defense team tries to throughly eliminate them before they score. Then teams switches role and former attackers start to defend. All pickups are removed from the map, players spawn with all possible arsenal available in the map and stocked with 100 Health 100 Armor. Red Rover A mish mash of FFA and TDM. Players split in two teams at random but once fragged, player force-switches team and turn onto their own former friends. Round ends when all players toppled up in one team. ''Red Rover Infected'' Same as Red Rover set up but with FFA rules instead of force switch. Who got fragged first in the arena becomes "infected". Infected state forces a rather grim looking Bones model on player accompanied by auto-response audible deep moans of agony to alert anyone coming nearby. Infecteds only can use Gauntlet, moves way faster and chase other players to score and make them join the horde. Maps Main list Numbers indicate the Premium Pak the map was introduced with, no number means the map came with the base game. Training and seasonal maps Differences between Quake 3 Arena and Quake Live *''Quake Live'' features a modified version of the Quake 3 Team Arena Heads-Up Display, displaying weapon ammunition on the left. *A few more player models from Quake 3: Team Arena are available in neutral colors (The default colors for Q3:TA models used to be red). *New alternate skins are included for some models. *New game modes added that sprout from CPMA and Dev Picks of the week. As of now, players can play 12 official different game modes and 7 sub rulesets belong to those. Players can download new community-made game modes from the workshop as they please. *Over 100 arena maps are offered to play on different modes. Including community and Id Software made arenas. Players can download new maps from the workshop as they please through Steam. Quake 3 Arena officially released with 31-32 maps in total back in '99, 26 of them being single player based campaign deathmatch maps and 4-5 being CTF (one of them is a modified DM-Tourney map) and one being a hidden testmap. *For tournament level play, QL hitboxes are renewed in beta phase. Old Quake 3 Arena hitboxes were trapezoid oblong structures, new Quake Live hitboxes changed into perfectly polygonal cylinders, also known as "hitcylinders". Hitboxes now have separated layers for weapon hitboxes (that shots come out from world view) and a clear ovoid shaped head hitboxes.https://www.quakehaus.com/archiv/quakelive/quake3_quakelive_waffenguide_hitzylinder.html *FOV (field of view) adjustments, Railgun colors and style, large selection control tweaks for individual weapons, mouse acceleration and sensitivity caps and other customizations are available in the options menu. *The gibs created in Quake 3 when fragging an opponent or destroying a corpse with a very powerful weapon are replaced by impact sparks. That allowed game to surpass Germany's strict rules about gore in videogames without region locks. *Pressing forward and holding down jump will allow player to accelerate at a slow pace. Holding jump will make player jump without ever needing to stop. It won't be fast as constantly Strafe-Jumping but a shortcut for snowballing some velocity in a longer time span. While it's possible to hit a near speedcap with a few well performed Strafe-Jumps, forward acceleration takes way longer to hit near the speedcap. *When starting a match, all players need to be ready in Quake Live. However, in Quake 3, the match starts right away without a warmup period on default. At the warmup period players are given all possible arsenal available in the map and scores don't get recorded. By default, when more than half of match becomes ready, game counts down to restart for real match where stats are recorded. *Some maps carried over to Quake Live have been slightly altered. The original tournament map against Xaero in Quake Live, for example, has a new platform for the Quad Damage powerup. A few stock maps went under noticeable changes to prevent players from getting chokefired. Also, the object spawning areas in the maps have been modified. *Aug'14 update also allowed players to have "starter loadouts" at some team based game modes. Where any player, can pick 1 extra weapon out of 6 available to replace their standard starter loadout for their hearts' content with limited ammo. *General Ammo Packs (icon being three white/silver bullets varying in length) added to all team based game modes replenishing all ammunition to all weapons player possess so far, without needing to look for specific ammunition packs in the map. In a crowded match, there won't be enough ammo packs to replenish all specific weapons of a team most of the time. *During the game, Quake Live features the player's statistics - score, frags, deaths, ping, accuracy, favorite weapon, time, chain kills, railgun frags, gauntlet kills, captures, assists, defense medals and current place in the game. Quake 3 did not feature any sort of player specific detailed stats. *At the end of a game in Quake Live, one may view all the player's individual statistics for a time; weapon accuracy, best weapon in match, important pickup counts along the match. *Heavy Armor is called as Red Armor and Light Armor is called as Yellow Armor. *Added a new armor type called Green Armor that appears on a few maps. That's a small refer to the Quake's Green Armor. Grants 25 armor points and stacks with all other armor types, have the same absorb rate of 2/3. *More medals added to the game. Namely; **'''Combo Kill granted by finishing a foe with a Railgun shot after damaging him/her through with another weapon. **'Headshot' granted to the player who scored a headshot frag on the enemy with Railgun. Headshots don't do extra damage. **'Quad God' granted to the player who frags 10 opponent in a streak while under the effects of a single Quad Damage pickup. **'Rampage' granted by gibbing 3 enemies within' 3 seconds of each frag. **'Midair' granted by fragging an airborne enemy with a projectile based weapon like RL or GL. **'Perforated' granted upon Telefragging an opponent. *Death messages that appear on screen without an open console involve the player's name, icon of the weapon used to kill, and the fragged player. Previously, sentences describing the frags were used. *Bots appear to be more responsive even at lower difficulties, their reaction times and accuracy being better. Alas, their pathfinding sometimes can come to an halt at certain maps and they can get easily stuck. *Over the 32 bots that Quake 3 Arena has, Quake Live adds 2 other: Demona and James. Demona is a sister bot to Major, sharing really similar capabilities and using Major-Red model. James was the last tourney bot player would face in Quake 3: Team Arena and appears to be the only one who is a legacy from there. *Some weapons' damage and utilities have been adjusted. **Railgun now deals 80 damage and Machine Gun now deals 5 damage per hit, and only 4 damage per hit in TDM. **Rocket Launcher splash damage nerfed down to 84 from 100, while Grenade Launcher kept its splash damage same it can not be detonated by Rocket blasts anymore. **Super weapon BFG10K now shoots 40% slower and its splash damage radius is reduced. **Lightning Gun now deals 6 damage per bolt from 8 damage per bolt, now have a forceful push whoever get caught to the beam. **Shotgun fires in 3 rings of 20 pellets in a wider spread and have a range limited to 1500 units. *Last update in Aug'14 before Steam release, removed Nailgun, Chain Gun and Proximity Mine Launcher from all maps of Quake Live. Even Arena CTF mode won't bring back those weapons. They're locked away from direct access but still achievable via cheatcodes. More creatively, community-made game modes downloadable from Steam Workshop can include them. *New weapon added called Heavy Machine Gun in same Aug'14 update. Since original starter Machine Gun is nerfed and Chain Gun is removed, developer team added a rapid hitscan weapon with acceptable stats. *Some power-ups have changed, Eg: A persistent power-up called Ammo-Regen is now Armor-Regen, Guard only adds 50% damage reduction, Flight power-up changed to be a usable jet hover, Battle Suit now doesn't block all splash damage but grants 50% damage mitigation like along the duration instead. Trivia *Although it says servers run on Safari 3+, some players find it does not. This is probably due to the browser itself. *Some characters now have crotch plate because of rating teen. Now blood gibs are also removed from visuals. *Most bots still lack the waypoint and pathfinding at some maps. Retribution (Q3DM7) being the biggest offender with underground tunnels and trigger buttons. *New added HMG isn't throughly scripted for bots and it's hard to see bots ever using or favoring it in combat. External links *Quake Live Official Website *Quake Live Wiki *Wikipedia *Mobygames *FaceBook *Twitter References Category:Quake Live Category:Games